the Red Service
of Surgery, the Green Service of Medicine, the Blue Service of
Diagnosis, and finally, seated at either end of the table, the
representatives of the Black Service of Pathology. Black Doctor Thorvold
Arnquist sat to Dal's left; he smiled faintly as the young Garvian
stepped forward, then busied himself among the papers on the desk before
him. To Dal's right sat another Black Doctor who was not smiling.

Dal had seen him before--the chief co-ordinator of medical education on
Hospital Earth, the "Black Plague" of the medical school jokes. Black
Doctor Hugo Tanner was large and florid of face, blinking owlishly at
Dal over his heavy horn-rimmed glasses. The glasses were purely
decorative; with modern eye-cultures and transplant techniques, no
Earthman had really needed glasses to correct his vision for the past
two hundred years, but on Hugo Tanner's angry face they added a look of
gravity and solemnity that the Black Doctor could not achieve without
them. Still glaring at Dal, Doctor Tanner leaned over to speak to the
Blue Doctor on his right, and they nodded and laughed unpleasantly at
some private joke.

There was no place for him to sit, so Dal stood before the table, as
straight as his five-foot height would allow him. He had placed Fuzzy
almost defiantly on his shoulder, and from time to time he could feel
the little creature quiver and huddle against his neck as though to hide
from sight under his collar.

The White Doctor opened the proceedings, and at first the questions were
entirely medical. "We are meeting to consider this student's application
for assignment to a General Practice Patrol ship, as a probationary
physician in the Red Service of Surgery. I believe you are all
acquainted with his educational qualifications?"

There was an impatient murmur around the table. The White Doctor looked
up at Dal. "Your name, please?"

"Dal Timgar, sir."

"Your _full_ name," Black Doctor Tanner rumbled from the right-hand end
of the table.

Dal took a deep breath and began to give his full Garvian name. It was
untranslatable and unpronounceable to Earthmen, who could not reproduce
the sequence of pops and whistles that made up the Garvian tongue. The
doctors listened, blinking, as the complex family structure and
ancestry which entered into every Garvian's full name continued to roll
from Dal's lips. He was entering into the third generation removed of
his father's lineage when Doctor Tanner held u